


Rei and Her Sister

by Sweetsugariness



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:56:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15847335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweetsugariness/pseuds/Sweetsugariness
Summary: A small "What-If" one-shot. Rei's politician father has decided to adopt a young orphaned girl to boost his popularity. Rei, at first, can't accept this stranger into her family but one stormy day changes her mind...





	Rei and Her Sister

She remembered the some parts of the morning more than others. She was only nine at the time after-all. But she recalled skipping into the living room at their shrine and placing a kiss on her grandfather’s cheek before sitting down. She also had memories of the scent of raw eggs and soy sauce over fresh rice and memories of her grumbling stomach. 

Her hands hovered over chopsticks for one moment but then the strangest feeling came over her. She needed to see something, something important,  is how she felt. So instead, she picked up the remote on the breakfast table and switched on the television. 

Her grandfather tried to snatch the remote from her, but he was too late. Noise from the news already flooded the temple room. Her purple eyes narrowed. On the screen, a reporter chatted amicably with a well-dressed man. The man spoke calmly but the more he spoke, the more rage welled inside her.

“As you know, it has been long enough since my dear Risa passed.” He told the reporter. “And I have grieved long enough, so has my darling Rei. It is time to push past this death and bring new life to our family. And in doing so, we will be opening our home and our hearts to a child of tragedy herself.” The man looked down and patted the head the child hiding behind him. “Isn’t that right, Makoto? Don’t be shy, tell the nice reporter lady about yourself.”

Makoto, the child with eyes like two deep and glistening green ponds, looked back and forth between the man pushing her forward and the microphone. She bit her lip before answering. “H-Hello. Congressman Hino adopted me, my parents...my parents...” Tears fell down her cheeks and she buried her face in Congressman Hino’s suit. He patted her head, the reporter made cutesy cooing sounds. 

Rei shut off the television and then threw the remote at it.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Rei.” Her grandfather started when she flicked her burning purple eyes at him. “He said he’d take more time and chose. I thought I had more time to tell you.”

She remembered shouting at her grandfather for awhile, and throwing plates of rice and eggs on the floor. Then she stomped towards her room, slamming her sliding door closed. 

Then she remembered collapsing on her bed and crying into her pillow. She remembered her muttering her mother’s name when she finally drained herself enough to fall asleep.

 

It would be two weeks before Rei and Makoto met in person. A slick black car pulled up to the shrine while Rei and her grandfather waited under the torii. She could only see her father’s silhouette through the tinted windows of the backseat. The driver zipped from the front seat to open the door on the the side, and she walked out. Makoto kept pulling at her dress and stockings as she walked towards the two. And rather than the weepy face she put on while on the news, Makoto had a shy smile. That smile grew as she noticed Rei and she started to run over to her.

She stopped, skidding on the stones of the temple, suddenly. Rei guessed Makoto got close enough to see Rei’s scowl.

“Hello, little Makoto!” Rei’s grandfather moved between the two children and held out his arm. “Welcome to the Shrine. Can I call you Mako-chan?”

Makoto grinned again. “Yes! Please do!” She insisted, shaking his hand.

“My, what a grip! You’re going to be an ox when you grow up!” He said. Rei already knew her grandfather could be a bit tackless, so she knew he wouldn’t notice Makoto’s slight wince. “Anyways, I know you’ve been dying to meet your new sister.” The grandfather stepped out of the way. “Mako-chan, this is Rei.”

“Ah, um…” She looked around, heavily blushing, before sinking into a bow. “It’s, it’s nice to meet you, Rei-onee-san!”

“You can’t call me that.” Rei turned on her heel. “Go away and take my dad with you!” 

“Rei-chan!” Her grandfather called out to her as she turned on her heel and stomped away.

“Wait!” Makoto cried after her. “Why won’t you talk to me?!” Rei almost, almost, stopped at the girl’s words. She could hear a breaking heart in each of them. She faced Makoto but as she did, Rei caught a glimpse of the black car and the shaded silhouette inside it, and angry fire swelled in her heart again. So Rei continued running away till she reached her room and locked the door behind her. 

Soon enough, Rei heard a car driving off. Her grandfather knocked on her door and told her that Makoto had left, but he had given the girl the phone number to the shrine so Rei should expect some calls for her. 

Rei yelled through her screens that she’d never talk to Makoto, ever, and that Makoto would never be her sister.

“Rei-chan,” her grandfather said her name like a sigh. “I know this is hard. I know your father should have spoken to you before doing this. But that girl, Mako-chan, she’s had quite a rough time too. Her parents died in an airplane crash only a year ago. You could be a bit kinder to her.”

“I don’t care!” Rei protested. “I hate her!”

With a verbal sigh this time, Rei heard her grandfather’s footsteps stroll past her room. 

A pang of guilt hit her but Rei thought that this Makoto girl would have gotten the picture then. 

 

But even Rei, whose intuition was starting to bud into precognition, could not predict that the girl would come back daily.  Each day she’d see Makoto waiting outside the torii, making her small palms into binoculars over her eyes as she searched the temple grounds. When she caught sight of Rei, she smiled, and waved, but Rei would toss her curtain of black hair over her shoulders and go back inside the shrine. 

In fact one day, when she woke up to thunder and rain drumming against her window, Rei smiled in relief. Surely, she thought, surely she didn’t have to see a ponytail waving in the wind outside. So she turned on her room light and opened her door a slightly.

Makoto, clutching her drenched, rose-print dress, waited outside the torii.

“What is she doing?” Rei thought aloud. “At least that dummy could stay in the car!”

But as she looked around, she realized that sleek black car wasn’t in sight. No one was in sight, save for Makoto.

“She couldn’t have…” Rei murmured. “Did she come by herself in a storm?!”

For some reason Rei didn’t have pity on her, just more fire-hot anger. How could she be so stupid? How could her father let her walk alone in this weather? Did anyone besides Rei have sense anymore?!

This anger was a strange one, not one that made her throw thing and scream, but put on her rain-boots and overcoat. This anger made her run outside holding an umbrella. This anger made her snatch Makoto’s hand before she even seemed to notice Rei had arrived. 

“Rei-onee-san!” Makoto exclaimed.

“You can’t call me that,” Rei repeated, then she dragged Makoto inside. Granted, Makoto seemed too bemused to protest or fight back. 

Once in her room, Rei pulled out some clothes from her closet and tossed them on her bed. She looked for things that looked like they’d fit Makoto’s slightly bulkier frame. 

“The bathroom’s the door on the second left. I’ll put clothes in there so you can leave those wet ones on the floor. Jiji will clean it later.” Rei told Makoto. “Go, I’ll get you towels too. There’s shampoo next to the soap dish for you hair.”

“Um, I,” Rei couldn’t tell if the cold made Makoto shutter or if Makoto's nerves made Makoto shutter.  "I mean-”

“Go!” Rei insisted. “Don’t make me even madder!”

The girl ran for the bathroom, but in spite of her steely words Rei could have sworn she saw Makoto grinning.

Once Rei heard the shower running she kicked off her boots, slumped out of her coat, and plopped on her bed face-first, as if her blankets could absorb the heat of embarrassment on her face. She couldn’t even fathom what came over her...or why, despite how much she told herself to hate Makoto, Rei couldn’t.  She ought to - her father just suddenly told her that this stranger was family and he, after everything, is the last person who should be able to do that. This girl would never be a Hino!...No matter how many nights Rei made those words echo in her head, that spark of resentment grew dimmer and dimmer each day. Something else flared in its place, a feeling Rei couldn’t define yet.

Well, maybe actually hanging around Makoto would let Rei know what that feeling was, she thought. She didn’t have to accept her as family, but there was no reason to completely ignore her…

So, grumbling, Rei got up from her bed. She went to the bathroom and deposited the clean clothes as she promised. When Makoto returned to the bedroom, Rei got out her hairdryer and made Makoto sit in front of her vanity dresser.

Before she could click the hairdryer on, Makoto squeaked out. “Aren’t you…” Makoto paused to look down, her own face slightly pink.  “Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Ask about what?”

First Makoto was too quiet to hear correctly, but eventually she muttered out: “My hair.” 

“Your hair?” Now that she had in her hands, Rei noticed how curly it was - and it was a sunny brown color too. None of her classmates had hair quite like it. “Why does it look like that?”

“People would make fun of my hair a lot, even grown-ups. I’d hear them say it was weird, and say I looked like a deli - deli -” Mako furrowed her brows, before sighing. “I can’t remember. I just remember it sounded like they thought I was scary. They didn’t want their kids playing with me.”

“Grown-ups are stupid sometimes.” Rei said with a shrug. “I’m not scared of anyone or anyone’s hair!”

“I figured.” Makoto gave Rei a small smile. “You weren’t afraid of the storm at all!”

“Neither were you apparently!” Rei told her. “Honestly, were you going to stay out there all night?!”

“Maybe, it’s not like Hino-san is waiting for me.” Makoto admitted. 

Rei clicked the hairdryer off again. She grit her teeth and shut her eyes. 

“Rei-onee...Rei-chan?”

“Of course,” Is the only thing Rei could answer. “Of course that’s how he is with you! That’s how he is with me! I should have known!”

Just then, Rei figured out the name of that feeling. It was fear. She had feared that father had replaced her, that deep down he could love and care for another little girl - just not Rei. Inside her, buried under layers and layers and layers of fury, it worried her that there was some flaw in her that made her father turn away and towards Makoto. That fear fueled her anger against Makoto at first...but the truth became more obvious with each day Makoto came to the shrine. There wasn’t anything wrong with Rei, just like there wasn’t anything wrong with Makoto. Her father - their father - just can’t care for them.

However, that old fear sparked a new one when Rei remembered Makoto lost her parents, just like she had lost her mom. Makoto’s going to expect their father to hold her and kiss her and wipe her tears away whenever that mask of "okay-ness" vanishes - just like Rei used to. Now Rei knew for certain that he couldn’t help Makoto. Makoto would be forced to stew in that misery for months.

“Rei-chan?” Makoto asked again.

“It’s Rei-onee-chan.” Rei told her. “Turn around Mako-chan, I can’t help you with your hair if you’re not looking at the mirror.” 

“I-I-” Makoto sniffled and rubbed her eyes. “Rei-onee-chan…” Her smile, although shaky, had a warmth, as if Makoto were a fireplace that Rei could warm herself with on a stormy day like today.

“Oy, what did I say? Just let me finish drying your hair. Then we can talk!” Rei told her. Makoto bobbed her head and faced the vanity once more. Rei flecked on the hairdryer once more. She gained a smile herself, thinking about all the other ways she could give her sister what their father could not. 

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my head, and on my drive, for awhile now. If I feel inspired I might add extra chapters and make this a series but for now, I just wanted to post what I had. Admittedly, this probably isn't an original "What-If" - I've at least hear of AUs where Mamoru is adopted by the Hinos - but still I was curious about how I'd see it.


End file.
